September 09, 2022
By:
Walter G. Wright
Category:
Arkansas Environmental, Energy, and Water Law
Arkansas Environmental, Energy, and Water Law
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The Arkansas Department of Agriculture Natural Resources Division (“NRD”) issued an August 30th news release noting the United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) recognition of the water quality improvement on the West Fork White River (“West Fork”).
The West Fork was featured in EPA’s July 2022 Success Story publication.
Criteria for qualifying as a “Success Story” are stated to include documentation of a waterbody’s improvement or removal from a state’s impaired waterbodies list (i.e., Clean Water Act Section 303[d] list).
The NRD news release states that:
. . . a total of 27.2 miles of the West Fork White River has been impaired since 1998 due to high levels of sediment and turbidity. As of 2018, the uppermost 16.5 miles of the river met the state’s water quality criterion for the first time since 1998.
The EPA Success Story referenced the efforts of the following organizations:
- University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture
- Watershed Conservation Resources Center
- Beaver Watershed Alliance
- Beaver Water District
- Arkansas Water Resources Center
- NRD
The role of the Arkansas Department of Energy & Environment – Division of Environmental Quality is also noted, which prepares the list of impaired waterbodies for purposes of Section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act and addresses relevant discharges from NPDES permittees.
A copy of the news release which contains a link to the EPA article and related videos can be found here.
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